moosepod

moosepod, 2 months ago to godot

March is BGS Cab Jam I, wherein a bunch of us are making games for an arcade cabinet we have in the space. I'm working on one in #godot that will be driven by the #roguelike engine I've been developing for my Playdate game.

Doesn't look like much yet, but the screenshot below demonstrates the Godot project pulling in the grid from my engine via GDExtension.

I've been very pleased with Godot and how easy it is to work with.

moosepod, 2 months ago to Playdate

It's been about a year since the #7DRL that kicked off my #playdate #roguelike project and I finally have an actual “playable" build. Playable is in quotes because in its current form it is extremely boring! But there are a functional 10 levels you can proceed through and win/lose. A half-dozen people played at it last night with no real issues.

This project is going to go on ice for a month as I pivot to making an arcade game for Buffalo Game Space's Cab Jam.

video/mp4

moosepod, 3 months ago to Playdate

It's been a while since I've posted an update on Pits of Playdatia, my #playdate #roguelike currently in development.

I made no real progress in December (focusing on Advent of Code) and January was slow.

This month I'm finally focusing on it again with a goal of a playable vertical slice ready for the Buffalo Game Space developer meetup at the end of the month.

The major gameplay change since last post is adding food + gold. Procgen also now uses template files to make iterations quick.

Brief screenshot of the splash page and then gameplay of Pits of Playdatia.

moosepod, 4 months ago to random

Just released an update to Pecklers (https://moosepod.itch.io/pecklers) that fixes a crash. Thanks to the person who commented on itch.io and let me know about the bug!

moosepod, 5 months ago to Playdate

And we have procgen in Pits of Playdatia!

Can't really see it from the screenshot but the whole floor including selecting enemies/items is now randomized. It's not very good but enough to play through a floor.

#playdate #roguelike

moosepod, 6 months ago to random

Pits of Playdatia has been rebuilt in the pdantler engine I wrote post-BGSJamXIX. Actual impact is minimal at the moment, but sets up for splash/credit scenes when needed. Also visible is the new lighting system -- the dark-shaded areas are previously visited but currently not visible. Thanks to @helloCLD for this suggestion!

moosepod, 6 months ago to random

I splurged for a physical copy of 50 Years of Text Games after hearing the author speak at #roguelikecelebration. What a great book! I thought I had a pretty good grasp on that history but have already learned a bunch from the first few chapters. Would highly recommend.

https://if50.textories.com/

moosepod, 7 months ago to random

In honor of Roguelike Celebration 2023 I have replaced the default goblins with eels.

moosepod, 8 months ago to Playdate

I've re-integrated the engine with the UI for my #playdate #roguelike just in time to show at Buffalo Game Space tonight.

Gameplay changes from last playable build focus on items -- items can be picked up, selected, and used. Melee/ranged weapons and healing potions are both implemented.

The two parts of the engine that are still not integrated are level generation and level save/load. The former needs to be refactored to allow for status updates, the latter optimized.

View of the Pits of Playdatia screen. An isometric ascii grid is in the center with status on the left and right. The player takes a number of actions: - Attacks/is attacked by a goblin - Goes and picks up a crossbow - Goes and picks up a potion - Moves into a corridor and selects an ogre - Attacks the ogre at range with the crossbow - Kills the ogre - Heals using the potion they picked up

moosepod, 8 months ago to Playdate

I took a step back from the engine itself to work on the UI for my #playdate #roguelike. Right now it supports:

• the primary text-based isometric grid
• basic damage animations
• a status UI for items/health/turns/depth
• using the crank to select both grid cells and item slots
• swapping between items in slots
• tooling for generating playdate fonts and the grid tiles.

Next step is to re-integrate the engine itself and get gameplay working again.

Screenshot of the pits of playdatia UI. An isometric grid is in the center with ASCII characters representing items/monsters. The status UI is represented by boxes on the left and the right of the grid. Selecting items shows a text message under the grid.

moosepod, 9 months ago to random

Tried a UI experiment today and liked the results. Now, when you take damage, there's a little animated damage number. Will also implement for monsters (and anything damageable of course).

This also shows off the other thing I've finished up -- loadable saves and a save generator! This turned out to be critical for debugging. Procedural generation is great, but not when you're trying to isolate a specific bug.

An isometric ASCII grid with an @ in the center and an O next to it. A 1 rises off the @ to indicate the damage taken. The bottom has an event log saying: Loading save. You attack the Ogre The Ogre attacks you And the right side has a health/turn indicator

moosepod, 10 months ago to random

Key interface mechanic now in place! You can use the crank to select relevant entities in the game world. In the attached image you can see the selection swap between the goblin and ogre as I turn the crank.

Crank works well on the device. Won't be entirely certain of this approach until it's combined with some actual actions.

Animated gif of a grid of characters. The G and O characters are being selected, and the status line is noting they represent a Goblin/Ogre respectively

moosepod, 1 year ago to random

This weekend I finished up my first vertical slice of Pits of Playdatia V2. It is now a playable (if extremely boring) game -- you can die, you can kill monsters, and you can win by escaping the level.

The next couple of iterations will focus on tooling before adding more gameplay.

#playdate #roguelike